The document details a scam perpetrated by the website "Economic Frauds" (economicfrauds.com). The author was contacted about a class action lawsuit and convinced to pay $650 in legal fees, but received nothing in return. Further research revealed "Economic Frauds" to be affiliated with other suspicious websites and likely operated out of the Philippines as an "advanced fee fraud". The author warns others that economicfrauds.com should be avoided as it is a scam seeking to defraud people through bogus legal fee charges.

2. Economic Frauds - economicfrauds.com/
Complaint 115492 Details
http://www.scambook.com/report/view/115492/Economic-Frauds---economicfrauds.com--Complaint-115492-for-
$650.00
Just for the benefit of the search engines –Warning
that “Economic Frauds”
(http://economicfrauds.com/) is a scam website
looking to defraud people through charging bogus
legal fees.

3. Some time ago I bought shares in a micro cap company traded
on the pink sheets. Lesson was quickly learned as I have ever
since tried my best to sell them without success, as nobody
seems to be interested in buying the small amount of stock
that I held.
I had all but forgotten about them until a few weeks ago when
I was contacted by someone at the website
http://economicfrauds.com/ who said that I was the victim of
a scam by the company (Midas Capital) that originally sold me
the shares and that they were filing a class action suit
against them and invited me to partake.
After much eulogizing of their own skills and of the
potential success of the case I was convinced and sent them
$150 in legal fees to register my name with the suit and
cover other costs, which I sent to their bank in Cyprus.

4. Shortly afterwards “Economic Frauds” contacted me to tell me
that the case had hit a stumbling block and that a further $500
would be required from each participant in the suit in order
for the case to proceed. $500 which I stupidly sent them.
I was then informed that because not all of the original
complainants decided to pay their share, and because of
additional costs incurred by the delay, I would have to pay a
further $450 in fees. Better late than never, but it was at
this point that my belief in http://economicfrauds.com/
seriously wavered.
Once it became clear to “Economic Frauds” that I was not going
to send them any more money they broke off all contact. They
stopped calling me, which they had been doing several times a
day when they were looking for money, and stopped taking my
calls or responding to my emails.

5. Hindsight is the only perfect science, but I am incredibly embarrassed
with the fact that http://economicfrauds.com/ contacting me unsolicited
didn’t set off any alarm bells and that a company based in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida with a bank account in Cyprus also failed to rouse
my suspicions.
However this third request for money with literally nothing to show for
it finally woke me up and I started digging around a bit on “Economic
Frauds”. Firstly it turns out that their website
(http://economicfrauds.com/) was only registered on 30th of May 2011 and
it was registered using the email address admin@peoplealliancecorp.com.
Now “People Alliance Corp” – http://www.peoplealliancecorp.com/ – has a
very similar website to http://economicfrauds.com/ (content, not style),
claiming that they will provide legal help to victims of stock fraud.
What is also surprising is that peoplealliancecorp.com have the exact
same postal address (PO Box 22247, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 333 35) and
telephone number (+1 954 449-6235) as “Economic Frauds” have on their
website – http://economicfrauds.com/.

6. Further Googling of the address reveals a link to
“Financial Frauds” – http://financialfrauds.us/ – (yet
another website with the exact same modus operandi),
http://www.independentwebdesigners.org/,
http://www.emiliachidester.com,
http://www.emiliachidester.org/ and two sites that are only
now referenced by Google’s cache (possibly because they
were shut down?) – “Citi Capital Partnership”
(http://citicapitalpartnership.com/) and “Phoenix Cooper
Financial” (http://www.phoenixcooperfinancial.com/) – both
of which have a number of warnings against them issued by
several European financial services authorities.

7. Now while there is nothing legally substantial in any of that, it is
certainly strange at the very least. What is just as strange is that
the purported CEO of “Economic Frauds”, Emilia Chidester, despite
having a long and varied CV including a regular Television slot with
Univision (Spanish speaking network in the USA), has zero internet
presence that was not created by her (or her creators). No
independent articles anywhere, not even a reference to her from
Univision, for whom she anchored their financial news segment for
years (apparently), just Linked In, Twitter, Wikipedia and several
blog posts, all of which I would dare say have been created since
30th of May 2011. If you watch the videos it is also apparent that
this person is far from comfortable in front of the camera.
What is even stranger about Ms. Emilia Chidester is that the woman
who appears in the videos on the http://economicfrauds.com/ website
looks nothing at all like the photo of the woman on her twitter feed
(http://twitter.com/#!/emiliachidester). They are both vaguely
Hispanic looking, but that is as close as they come to being the same
woman. In fact, the woman in the videos looks more Asian to me, so
considering the accent my guess would be she is a Filipina. No
surprise that the Philippines is a haven for many fraudsters.

8. While continuing my internet research, I came across this
forum warning people against many different fraudulent
websites – http://www.trade2win.com/boards/brokerages/14154-
boiler-room-scams-385.html – they link “Economic Frauds” with
two other companies labeled as a scam that are working the
same advanced fee fraud – “Global Investor Alerts”
(globalinvestoralerts.com) and “Investor Alerts”
(investoralerts.com).
While my limited private detective skills can only come up
with the above, that, along with the actions of “Economic
Frauds” leaves me in no doubt that they have scammed me out
of my money and that http://economicfrauds.com/ is a scam
website. The fact that they pretend to be fighting against
fraud makes their actions all the more disgusting.

9. I have no doubt that it will prove impossible for me to
retrieve my money, so if outing the scam that is “Economic
Frauds” and their website http://economicfrauds.com/ on the
internet makes their attempts at defrauding someone else
that little bit more difficult, then I will have to settle
for that.
Just for the benefit of the search engines –Warning that
“Economic Frauds” (http://economicfrauds.com/) is a scam
website looking to defraud people through charging bogus
legal fees.